Quantum center levels up, generating new research, grants, space
Have you heard about the dentist who decided to become a quantum physicist?
That's not a joke. He’s a Virginia Tech graduate student named Hisham Amer. Seven years ago, he was a practicing oral surgeon and faculty member in dental medicine at Cairo University in Egypt.
When he decided to start over again in physics, his dismayed family expressed concern: “They thought I needed professional help,” Amer said.
Fast-forward seven years, Amer is a member of the Virginia Tech Center for Quantum Information Science and Engineering. Working with director and physicist Sophia Economou, Amer investigates different methods to control quantum computers and tests their ideas on IBM’s cloud quantum processors.
Earlier this month, Amer, Economou and the rest of the quantum group celebrated the opening of a new Quantum Information Science and Engineering space. The center is administratively housed within the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science, which hosted a ribbon cutting with Dan Sui, senior vice president for research and innovation.
The quantum center "not only elevates Virginia Tech’s leadership and status in quantum information science and engineering, but also improves our global reputation in this area,” Sui said.
Think, talk, theorize
Headspinningly complex quantum advances are taking place in the quantum center, which is dedicated to understanding the physics of quantum systems and how these principles can be harnessed for new technology and new applications.
As such, you might expect to see arrays of machinery, blinky lights, or at least some really fancy computers.
Instead, you walk into a clean white space, full of natural light and whiteboards. The students gathered around tables pull battered laptops out of their bags and start spit-balling ideas.
“Our primary expertise is in quantum theory, and the best equipment for theorists is space,” said Economou, the T. Marshall Hahn Chair of Physics in the College of Science. “We designed an environment where you can really think and collaborate.”
The university's quantum collaboration spans departments, including computer science, electrical and computer engineering, data science, mathematics, and chemistry along with physics.
In addition to this transdisciplinary research portfolio, Virginia Tech is one of the first U.S. institutions to offer an undergraduate minor in quantum and hosts a popular four-day summer school for high school students and undergraduates and a quantum research program at Thomas Jefferson High School in Northern Virginia.
Bearing quantum fruit
In the 2022 State of the University Address, Virginia Tech President Tim Sands announced the creation of the center to drive discoveries and forge ingenious solutions to stubborn problems. Since then, the center’s deep bench of expert collaborators has yielded results, with findings published in high-impact journals such as Nature Physics, Nature Electronics, Nature Communications, Physical Review Letters, and Physical Review X.
Quantum research at Virginia Tech has already secured highly competitive grants, including more than $15 million in federal funding, and is well positioned to capture emerging opportunities from federal and industry partners, according to Sui.
Graduates and postdoctoral scholars are landing high-profile jobs at companies such as IBM; start-ups including PsiQuantum and IonQ; national labs such as Oak Ridge, Sandia, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; and universities including Florida State University, Telecom Paris, and the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.
Current students and postdocs are working beside faculty members, collaborating with each other, and making Virginia Tech a global destination for quantum knowledge and discovery.
And one of them can also extract your wisdom teeth, although he’s a little rusty.
